


Welcome To The 21st Century

by captainkippen



Series: JATP Appreciation Week 2020 [4]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Pop Culture, Social Media, Technology, jatp appreciation week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27384646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkippen/pseuds/captainkippen
Summary: Day 4: write a fic including pop culture/memes.The boys reintegrate into the world. The internet helps.Written forJulie and the Phantoms Appreciation Week 2020.
Relationships: Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie
Series: JATP Appreciation Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993720
Comments: 23
Kudos: 338
Collections: JATP Appreciation Week





	Welcome To The 21st Century

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at **[captainkippen](https://captainkippen.tumblr.com/). ******

**Welcome to the 21st Century**

Twenty-five years was a long time to be out of the loop. Julie hadn’t appreciated just quite how much the boys had missed, however, until she introduced they began to get the hang of interacting with the physical world. It started slowly, as they got used to using their hands, first with stealing Carlos’ laptop to watch videos of their favourite bands perform and then gradually to educate themselves on the twenty-first century.

The day Reggie learned to use Google was a mess, to say the least.

“Did you know Area 51 has aliens?” he asked desperately, prodding Julie awake. 

She stared at him. He was wearing a tinfoil hat.

“I think that’s enough Wikipedia for today,” she replied gently, taking his phone with a warm smile.

It only got worse from there.

It had been Carlos’ idea to get the guys phones (mostly because he wanted them to stop borrowing his laptop). Julie hadn’t seen the harm in it, she figured it was a safe way for the guys’ to be able to interact with the world and maybe, just maybe, it would make them a little less sad about the fact they were dead, so she’d dipped into the money they’d been making from shows. She hadn’t anticipated just how much chaos Luke could cause on social media.

“This girl says I’m a Heather,” Luke frowned at the screen, then at Julie. “What does that mean?”

“Are you… are you on Twitter?” she asked, peering over his shoulder with a groan.

“Flynn said it was a good idea!”

“I’m going to kill her.”

YouTube was a nightmare. The concept of cameras in phones still baffled the guys a little, but Julie wished Luke hadn’t picked up how to use them so quickly. With Flynn’s encouragement, he was all too happy to film behind the scenes content for vlogs. There were far too many videos of Julie half asleep and looking dead to the world during early morning practices, and more than one of her threatening to fight him. Fans had started to question it and they’d had to pretend the boys had flown over to the states to visit.

She had to admit, though, she kind of liked having those memories documented.

It wasn’t all bad. Julie finally had someone to watch _Say Yes To Dress_ with. Alex was unapologetically enamoured about any and all reality television.

> **@JulieMolina • 2m ago**
> 
> Please stop thirsting over Luke, guys. Earlier he asked why you were all so dehydrated.

> **@LukePatterson • 1m ago**
> 
> Drink water!!!

Movie nights became a regular thing. After an evening of taking the boys through the brief history of VHS to DVDs (there had been an uproar when they found out Blockbuster was over) to streaming, they had taken to consuming every piece of onscreen media they could. Star Wars was a wild ride that Julie wished she could forget. Lord of the Rings left them all in awe. By the end of a gruelling week filled with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though Julie would have been happy never to see Robert Downey Jr.’s face again afterwards, she had ended up agreeing to take them all to comic con one year. 

One night Reggie trudged into the room, his eyes red and cheeks wet, looking forlorn. 

“Bucky and Cap should’ve been together,” he sniffed. “He became a _fugitive_ for him.”

Julie just opened her arms and let him snuggle in.

Luke had a soft spot for romantic comedies, even though he denied this fact adamantly if pressed. The Fast and Furious movies were another hit. And they spent several months catching up on every popular sitcom that had aired since 1995. All of them had been incredibly satisfied to find out that Friends had continued for so long, but everybody was in agreement that it was too straight for its own good. Chandler and Joey deserved to be together, and Rachel and Monica were obviously in love… Luke and Alex went on several rants about the topic. 

> **@PhantomReggie • 1m ago**
> 
> jar jar doesn’t deserve rights

> **@LukePatterson • 2m ago**
> 
> what’s a himbo?

> **@PhantomAlex • 5m ago**
> 
> it’s britney bitch

“I love Spotify,” Luke moaned, lying back with his eyes closed and a satisfied smile on his lips. “D’you know you can listen to _anything_ on there?”

New music had, without a doubt, been all of the boys’ favourite thing about the future. Luke in particular had dived headfirst into listening. He played anything he could get his hands on, creating for himself a comprehensive history of rock and the alternative scene since he’d been gone. Julie had ended up buying a CD drive for her computer so she could watch the gleeful look on his face as he burned her mixes. A steady pile of cassettes had begun to grow in her room, and he had been absolutely thrilled by the recent return of vinyl records to the scene. Streaming had taken him a little longer to get his head around, mostly because it took him a surprisingly long time to figure out how to navigate every app on his phone.

“It’s pretty cool,” Julie nodded.

“Just wait until he hears about playlists,” Carlos murmured.

“He’ll never put the phone down again.”

Using Instagram was interesting as a band. The more songs they released on YouTube the more popular they got. Flynn had been put in charge of running the social media accounts, which was perfect, but photographs proved to be a problem. Since defeating Caleb on the night of the Orpheum performance, the guys had learned how to solidify at will outside of playing music as long as they had Julie nearby. It took a lot of effort, but it was worth it if it meant they could hold physical conversations with their friends. However, they had quickly discovered that when they did manifest physically outside of their performances, on camera they gave off an odd ethereal glow. 

> **@officialfantoms** commented: _what the fuck is up with this picture quality? luke looks like he’s evaporating lol_
> 
> **@queenflynn** replied to **@officialfantoms:** _it’s the holograms! iPhone cameras don’t like them lmao_
> 
> **@officialfantoms** replied to **@queenflynn:** _ohhh. thanks for replying!! love your hair! please tell reggie i love him lmao_

“Wow,” Flynn said. “We are so lucky the guys are cute.”

Julie rolled her eyes.

“Tell me about it.”

> **@JulieMolina**
> 
> whoever told luke he has a fan page i’m gonna fight you in a denny’s parking lot

“Hey Julie, what’s a TikTok?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

  
  
  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Welcome To The 21st Century](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28378785) by [MistbornHero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistbornHero/pseuds/MistbornHero)




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